Kukla's Korner Hockey

Tyler Myers can chuckle about it now, but he was a beaten man last season. He was a physical wreck, a mental disaster. It showed nearly every time he stepped on the ice or up to a microphone.

Something had to give. Actually, pretty much everything had to give.

“You have a year like you did last year, you want to change some things,” the Buffalo Sabres defenseman said Friday. “I’ll be the first to say, that’s not me as a player last year. I have to be much better.”

Not looking for anyone to blame, Myers took it upon himself to improve as a player and person this summer. He trained his body and mind in ways he never had before, and the early results suggest a turnaround is on the way.

“It’s just a matter of the way you handle different situations and make sure you stay on yourself,” he said. “A lot of things went on last year that got in my head. It just goes back to the mental training side of it, of how you prevent yourself from heading downhill mentally instead of stopping that and making sure you stay at your peak. It’s confidence level and how you build that confidence.